NYT: U.S. and Iraqi Troops Raid Health Ministry

U.S. and Iraqi Troops Raid Health Ministry

By PAUL von ZIELBAUER | August 13, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 13 — American and Iraqi soldiers searching for kidnapping victims raided Iraq’s Health Ministry before dawn today, arrested five bodyguards and confiscated a large sum of Iraqi dinars, military and government officials said.

Also today, in separate incidents, Iraqi security forces arrested 16 men who they said were planning to kidnap or kill members of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s family, and the governor of Ninawa province barely escaped assassination after gunmen opened fire on his convoy in the northern city of Mosul.

The raid of the Health Ministry, at 2:30 a.m. local time following an Iraqi’s tip, did not turn up any kidnapping victims but drew a vehement reaction from the health minister, Dr. Ali al-Shimari, a Shiite who is closely aligned with the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr and the powerful Shiite militia he controls, the Mahdi Army.

“They broke into all the floors, especially the ninth floor, stole some money, which was the salaries of the security workers, and they kidnapped five of our staff,” Dr. Shimari, visibly annoyed, told reporters at his office this afternoon. “This is a provocation,” he went on. “No day passes by without raids by the Americans against our health institutions.”

Coalition forces said they received a tip at 12:44 a.m. today that 15 men wearing Iraqi army uniforms had kidnapped six people from a large medical complex in central Baghdad and taken them to the health ministry, the American military said in a statement.

Four of the five men arrested were released today, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, an American military spokesman; the fifth man was held for questioning this evening. Colonel Johnson did not respond to questions about whether soldiers confiscated money from Dr. Shimari’s office, but he said the raid was part of the recent American effort to stabilize Baghdad’s precarious security situation.

“The Iraqi government has sworn to take every citizen’s tip seriously and act upon them,” Colonel Col. Johnson said in an e-mailed statement. “The coalition has likewise sworn to assist them in these efforts to build a secure environment for the people. It is for the benefit of the Iraqi people that these forces conducted the search and detained the suspects.”

Dr. Shimari has long been considered a Shiite firebrand. In June, he faced awkward questions after a Sunni Arab health official from a neighboring province disappeared following a meeting in Dr. Shimari’s Health Ministry office. Some Sunni Arab political leaders believed the health official, Dr. Ali al-Mahdawi, who is a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, was kidnapped by members of a Shiite militia.

Dr. Shimari has denied any knowledge of his disappearance of Dr. Mahdawi, whose fate remains unknown.

The men suspected of plotting to kill or kidnap Mr. Maliki’s family members were arrested in Hindiya, about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad, the statement from Mr. Maliki’s office said. The men, whom the statement referred to as “criminals,” confessed to killings, abductions and carrying out an attack on a police station in Mahmudiya that killed six officers, the statement said. One suspect in the group also confessed to detonating 12 car bombs in Baghdad.

The government did not identify the 16 men or clarify which killings and kidnappings the men had confessed to.

In Mosul, Duraid Kashmula, the governor of Ninawa Province, was inspecting the work in a fuel station at 9 a.m. when gunmen launched a fusillade of automatic gunfire at his convoy, an official in Mr. Kashmula’s office said. He said unknown insurgents attacked the governor and his escorts with machine guns. A member of the governor’s security detail was wounded in the attack.

In Baghdad, six people were killed and 30 others injured in a series of three bomb blasts inside and around an apartment building in the Baghdad’s Zaafaraniya district on Baghdad’s south side, said an Interior Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The first blast occurred inside the building, the official said. The second explosion came from a car bomb outside, triggered to detonate after neighbors who heard the first blast gathered outside the building. The third blast occurred on the road to the building as police patrols sped toward it, the official said.

Also today, Iraqi police officers said they had shot and killed two men wearing explosive vests near Alawi bus station in the center of Baghdad.

West of Baghdad, a roadside bomb in Shurta Al-Khamisa killed three people and injured three others this morning, a hospital spokesman here said.

American military officials also announced today that soldiers from the 502nd Infantry Regiment, Second Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division arrested a man involved in the July 17 bombing of a local market in Mahmudiya that killed 40 people and wounded 70 others.

Ali Adeeb, Qais Mizher and Khalid W. Hassan contributed reporting for this article.